Highspeed racing shooter Dyad is like an abstract Wipeout—with a chair

Taking inspiration from games like Wipeout, Rez, and Torus Trooper, the …

Dyad is described as "a warpspeed abstract racing game" with puzzle elements. It's the kind of game designed to put players in a zen-like mindset, much like a Rez or a Wipeout. Though the game was just officially announced as a PlayStation Network title, it has been in development for around three years, created primarily by one man, Shawn McGrath. Ars spoke with McGrath about the game, the personal tolls of undertaking such a massive project solo, and why he decided to bring a giant moving chair called "The Machine" with him to PAX.

Like many other abstract games, Dyad is kind of hard to describe. It's a game where you speed through tunnels, hooking on to particles and grazing them for speed, and there are also shooting elements and a combo system. Watching videos or looking at screenshots doesn't really convey how the game feels when you're playing it. While this could potentially make things more difficult from a marketing perspective, McGrath believes it's actually a good thing.

"If you can understand a game by watching it I don’t think it’s interesting," he told Ars.

In addition to working with musicians, for the first year of the project McGrath also worked alongside another designer, Pekko Koskinen, brainstorming what would eventually become the core of Dyad. But due to financial and geographical reasons, Koskinen wasn't able to stick with the project, and so McGrath has continued on his own, working full-time on the project for the past two years, thanks to a combination of funding from the Ontario Media Development Corporation and his own personal savings. Putting so much time and money into one single project has inevitably led to quite a bit of pressure for McGrath.

"I’m married and I eventually want to have kids," he explained. "And so I have a tremendous amount of stress to make money on it. I was a computer programmer doing contract work for years, and I saved all my money and I basically spent it all. So I have a tremendous amount of pressure to at least make some money off of it. I don’t need to make a ton of money, but I need to not be in a worse situation than when I started.

"At the same time, I’m not interested in making something that’s really bad. Or I’m not interested in making something that’s just there for the sake of making money. So I have this other pressure of [wanting] to do something that’s really good and it has to appeal to enough people, or at least be accessible enough, that I don’t sacrifice six or seven years of my life making it, because that’s how long it took, because I was doing all that other stuff before to basically pay for this."

Dyad

Inevitably, this kind of pressure led to a bit of burnout, and to deal with this McGrath spent six weeks building an interesting side-project: a motorized chair made from metal, plywood, and bedsheets—designed specifically for playing Dyad. A pair of motors move and vibrate the chair to coincide with what's happening onscreen and a Sixaxis controller has been fitted to the seat to keep track of rotation. The chair, known simply as The Machine, was also built with a purpose, as McGrath had decided that Dyad was now in a place where it could be shown to the larger public, and so he took it to PAX East.

"I looked into showing at PAX and it turns out that companies go there and spend $15 million on booths, which sucks when you’re making a game for a tenth of that, or not even a tenth but a twentieth of that," he told Ars. "So the entire budget for my game is less than what these people spend in a weekend. I had to compete with that somehow and I thought that if I just make a cool chair thing, that would work.

"And it did."

No specific date has been announced for when the game will be hitting PSN, but McGrath is aiming for a fall release, and he tells Ars there will be a demo at some point. Whenever it does launch, though, once thing is clear: this is game that won't be released until it's good and ready.

It's been quite a while since I've played Wipeout, but I'm willing to bet that he meant it in the same way as R-Type III (and likely the others in that franchise). By that, I mean you need to survive getting your ass kicked by the game until you go into a zen-like state (which is pretty much necessary to get past the second level of the game).

@Ben -- Why not put "PS3 Exclusive" in the title? Still, that comment was generally positive. And hey, not everybody can afford one of each game system out there. Some of us only have one. And most of us don't get sent games for free to review. We buy our games. Maybe if we didn't have to, we could buy one of each console plus an iPod plus an iPad. Maybe. In short, sour grapes are cheaper than PS3s.

I think it looks cool too, and also wish it were being made for a platform I have (PC or Xbox 360). Since it's not, I'll stick to what I like that is similar, such as Audiosurf. *shrug*

Ah, I loved the game. This one... I don't know. It looks very difficult, and I feel like it needs better sounds. Or sounds at all. Of course, I got rid of my PS3 recently, so that simplifies the decision.

On second thought, before my idea goes off the rails... obviously it would be for exclusives on any platform. Or say Xbox/PlayStation or PS3/PC.

They do these in the skip/rent/buy review/recommendations, but at the bottom.

Of course, I feel that we could all be a little more mature about it; exclusives are bound to happen, which is what Ben was getting at. Still, you can't fight the whole Internet, and with the global economy in recession, for a guy who obviously has, or has access to, every modern gaming platform *and* gets games for free to review, barking at those of us who can only afford one platform... well, it's not too nice. But, I guess that's just the Internet for ya. So I just try to say "well gee, that looks interesting, shame it's not for a platform I own, I might buy it". So, maybe a cross between sour grapes and supporting the dev. Because, I'm not going to, you know, go out and get a PS3 because some indie game looks awesome. *shrug*

Since this sort of comment is going to happen on every story, no matter the system, we need a name for it. Any ideas?

Woms - Want on my system

I got there from the political expression Nimby, Not in my backyard. I had it as Noms, but that sounds like a complaint rather than Woms which is a desire. Also, noms is taken by a certain website dedicated to cats.

I hate to be picky, but I was sold on this game until I heard the sound in the video.

Something about it just rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know if it was a sound effect or the music, but in a game that is designed to induce a trance-like state through a combination of visual and aural stimulation, what I heard would jolt me out of my fugue every time.

Disappointing to say the least. If there's a demo version I'll give it an honest try, but I'm not prepared to drop money on something that will fail to deliver on its core mechanic for me.

There have been times when I've wished for more clarity on which platform a particular game is for. However, I also think it helps give you a little more exposure into what's going on on the 'other' system(s). It's very easy to become myopic these days.